From Divine Salvation to Ironic Survival: Purim and the Secular Subversion of Pesach

Summary: Jason Rubenstein. What if being skeptical about miracles, nervous about the future, and unwilling to rely on Divine salvation weren't threats to Judaism - but part of the tradition itself? This session will develop the possibility that the major features of the Purim story - and their reception by Hazal - have a subversive, ironic, and secularizing aim. Beyond thinking about the two holidays specifically, we'll develop them as paradigms of competing religious worldviews that stretch the boundaries of Jewish belief. Recorded live at the 2017 Rabbinic Yeshiva Intensive.